Growing up at our house meant sharing chores and treats, and the definition of “sharing” was sometimes taken to extremes by us kids.
Washing and drying supper dishes was a job for all five of us. As the youngest, I didn’t have to wash, but I was expected to dry, usually sharing the task with one of my sisters. Drying dishes was not difficult, but it interfered with playing and TV. It seemed to me that the best way to be fair was to count the wet dishes and silverware. I would dry half, she would dry half. Exactly half.
Pepsi was the cola of choice in our family, most especially because it was my father’s favorite. The Pepsi bill was not small for our family of 7, and most of the time we asked permission only to “split a Pepsi.” Split meant split, so we took the measuring cup and carefully poured out 5 ounces from the 10-ounce bottle to ensure that no one was slighted.
To tell the truth, the balance of work and worry at our house was indisputably lopsided, with my parents always carrying the heaviest load. Mom did most of the chores, and there were many things we did not feel the need to “split” (I don’t remember any arguments over broccoli or mashed potatoes). As lopsided as things were in our favor, the way we kids saw it measuring was necessary to ensure that none of us was personally overburdened or personally underprivileged.
One time a high school friend, angered for some reason by our biology teacher, announced that she would get back at him by failing the next test. Who was more punished by that revenge?
Other folks have told me similar stories about growing up at their house and school. We laugh about the past and our childhood sense of justice, but perhaps we also recognize that as adults we still take ridiculously precise measurements in other areas of life or refuse to let go of measurements we took long ago. At times our sense of egalitarianism is carried to extremes, and when life is not fair as we define “fair,” we brood.
We compare the success of others to our perceived lack of good fortune and grind our teeth. We observe their looks, their possessions, their friends and count ourselves short. We forgive little when we have been forgiven much. We count so obsessively what we do have that we fail to figure how we have more than enough to share with the needy. We gauge the length and height and weight of injuries inflicted on us and don’t recognize that it is our need to settle scores that injures us most.
Luckily, God does not measure as we measure, nor does he expect that we carry an equal share of the burden he bears for us. He does not measure our sins as they could easily be measured, nor does he hold back his love though our love for him is puny in comparison. He does not stop sharing with us when we are stingy with others, nor does he retaliate as we are sometimes tempted to do. In our relationship with God, everything is undeniably lopsided in our favor by his mercy. We keep count and measure, but he never stops lavishing his love, his forgiveness, his favor.
I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when reading two responsorial psalms. “If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand?” “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.”
If there was a measuring contest, and the scale of our iniquities would be compared to the scale of God’s goodness, none of us could “stand.” If God dealt with us “equitably” as our sins deserve, we would never know the length and depth and height and breadth of his mercy.
God does not measure as we measure or compare as we compare. He is pure goodness, pure love. He is the One who bears the burden without counting, simply because we are his beloved. Any sharing that is done is done by him. Even when he invites us to “take up your cross,” it is only so that we will experience the power of his love as he bears its crushing weight, only so that we will learn how to put his love into action.
Oliver Lyttelton, a British businessman who entered government service during World War II, once said of Winston Churchill, “He seldom carries forward from the ledger of today into tomorrow’s account.” Such an admirable human trait reminds us that God never carries forward from yesterday’s ledger. He doesn’t even keep a ledger.
May we open ourselves this Lent to God’s unfathomable, literally immeasurable, forgiveness. Coming to terms with his mercy changes us forever. Through contact with him may you and your loved ones be unburdened and unfettered, freed of scales and measuring cups, secure and at peace in his nearness.
“Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
Do you have an intention for Bishop Sartain’s prayer? If so, send it to him at Bishop Sartain’s Prayer List, Diocese of Little Rock, 2500 North Tyler St., P.O. Box 7239, Little Rock, AR 72217.
